by J. B. Markes
Eamon shouted and pounded his chair. "They make the pirates; they can hunt them down themselves! And the north—gods, these people! It's called the frontier. If I sent an army for every skirmish, there'd be nothing left for Coranthia. And that's just what they want! King Eamon backs out of an alliance with the Ashdowns and gives Northsgate yet another reason. Word spreads of a new king in the east and before we know it we've lost the entire coast. By the gods, I'll crush them before they realize what's happening."
Eamon's declaration of force loomed over the entire company, inviting sideways glances between the Second Sentinels and academy wizards. They were unaccustomed to the king's dark promises and thus were unsure if they had just received an order.
"His Majesty is right." Queen Valora said. "Our enemies are crafty. We must be equally crafty."
"Perhaps we should give Lord Ashdown a chance to explain himself," Seeker Celeste said. "If we welcome him into the Silver Palace, it will show everyone that we are not intimidated by their show of force."
Eamon shook his head before Celeste had even completed her thought. "With half the noble houses of the kingdom still in Astar, I will not give Lord Ashdown a chance to speak. He will poison the minds of all who listen. We have the advantage with my wizards. We will use it while we can." King Eamon nodded to the queen and leaned back on his throne for the first time since he entered the Round. "Good."
"When the Ashdowns arrive—" Celeste waited.
"Bring Lord Ashdown and his escort here," Eamon said. "The throne room will be empty. Be ready for the call."
The Seeker spun on her heel and dismissed the company, waiting until the wizards were filing out to release an anxious sigh. The masters began their gossiping before they had even left the throne room.
"That's it then." Inspector Raines was downcast as he approached. "I called you to investigate a murder but it was all in vain. Prince Jasper's kidnappers have all but identified themselves."
"If the king orders the attack, he will never see the prince again," I said. "That's assuming they have him at all. None of this makes any sense."
"Why else would they arrive weeks in advance with no warning?" Raines asked. "They have the prince. You heard His Majesty as well as I did. He will not pay. I'm afraid the prince's life may be forfeit."
"We shall see," Gustobald said. "Let's return to the room and prepare for the ritual."
"You've been ordered to leave," Raines whispered.
"Over my dead body," the necromancer replied then balked under our stares. "As it were."
"I'll meet you in the room," I said, leaving them to bicker. I caught up with Master Virgil just outside the door. When Sentinel Chalke sprinted up behind me and grabbed my arm, I called out to my former master and he fell out of line to come to me, examining Chalke with interest.
"In custody at last," Virgil said. "Didn't I tell you to stay away from that Gustobald Pitch?"
"He's a hero now, in case you've forgotten," I said. "Where's Regina?"
"She's busy at her duties," he said.
"You can't keep her from seeing me. She's my best friend. Don't punish her for my sake."
"You're mistaken," he said. "I wanted her here. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for any mage, let alone an apprentice. She didn't want to come."
"That's not true," I said, looking back to the orange-robes.
"She asked to stay behind. She has a lot of work to do without you to help her. Get some rest, Isabel. You don't look so good." Master Virgil returned to the hand mages without looking back. At one point I was his favorite pupil, but he had been bitter ever since my dismissal, and downright hostile after Gustobald and I fell into our small amount of success. If Virgil had it his way, I would have been more considerate and died without causing him such disgrace.
"Let's go," I said, reversing Chalke's hold on my arm and pulling him down the corridor to my room.
Chapter 16
Bonding with a familiar is often described as the most rewarding part of a mage's career. Almost any dumb animal can be selected, depending on the strength of the wizard, but the choice equally belongs to the familiar itself. It is a relationship built on mutual trust. In this way, the familiar is not a servant, but a friend, counsellor, and lifelong companion.
My cat Akasha was the perfect candidate for becoming a familiar. We could already read each other so well with no magic at all. Like everything else in the life of a wizard, or perhaps more so, performing the ritual is taxing on body and mind, so a mage often spends weeks or months building a relationship with the creature before she makes the attempt. Once formed, nothing short of death can sever the bond between them. That's assuming the creature was alive to begin with.
Gustobald's suggestion that I bond with a dead pigeon came as a surprise to me, if such a thing was even possible anymore. If anyone else had suggested such a thing, I would have laughed them off, but I had seen Gustobald's undead rat with my own eyes. I reminded him about my cat, but he ignored my pleas. Though I was no longer an apprentice wizard, the necromancer was still my master, so once he insisted twice—and then twice more—I reluctantly gave in.
Airlea paid an unexpected visit to my room that evening, interrupting Gustobald's poorly conceived scheme. The two shared a moment of second-hand disgust, neither holding a personal grudge against the other, but also not making pretenses of courtesy. Grateful though I was to delay the bonding ritual, I wasn't in the mood for discussing the upcoming duel, so I found it hard to smile at my new friend, as well.
"I'll leave you to it," the necromancer said. "I'm sure you two have much to discuss."
"You can stay," I said, but Gustobald didn't wait. I was halfway to the exit when Sentinel Chalke gave me a dirty look from the outside hallway and closed the door.
"Are you avoiding me now?" Airlea asked, inspecting the wand still in its charging stand.
"Not hardly," I said. "I'm not even allowed out of my room. But I know why you're here."
"I'm just here to check on you. I was worried. I heard about what happened."
"I'm sure everyone in Astar heard about what happened by now. Anyway, I'm not going to reschedule this duel. It's been called off." I went to the charging station and pulled the finished wand from its stand, tossing it on the table. "This is a waste of time and energy. Look what it's already cost us."
"It's in the stars."
"Why do you care so much?"
"I don't expect you to fully understand," she said. "I already told you that we can't outrun our fate. This duel is already written. We must work together within the matrix we're given or things will get worse."
"I'm not listening to this."
"Nothing good has ever come from attempting to cheat the Destinies. You can't see their constellation, but they are always watching over us."
"You don't know my fate," I said.
"That's what everyone says." She unshouldered her satchel and laid it on my bed, removing a leather pouch and unbinding the drawstrings. "But you're right. I only know what my father has told me about his own reading."
"Am I about to get my fortune told?"
"You're so confident your fate rests in your own hands. You're not scared to put it to the test, are you?" She handed me the pouch and removed a round wooden board etched with pictograms I didn't recognize. There were nail-sized holes here or there, with shallow grooves running between some of them.
I dumped the pouch into my hand, and out tumbled an assortment of odd-shaped white and black stones. Mixed among them were two pegs carved into the shapes of blind-folded women with flowing robes. Airlea sat on one side of the wooden board and invited me to sit opposite her.
"What am I looking at?" I asked, subdued by curiosity alone.
"Fragments of a star that fell from the sky. And these white ones are bones of a celestial being." She paused to allow me time to reject her statement, but I wouldn't give her the pleasure. "Place the two women where you will," she said, running her finger across the holes
on the board. "Then toss the rest of the stones."
I fitted the pegs into the two closest holes and dropped the pieces. Airlea didn't seem thrown by my lack of enthusiasm, and a silly doubt crept in warning me that I'd done exactly as she expected. She tilted her head back and fluttered her eyelids, whispering a divination spell. When she looked back down her focus was intense. She poked through the stones as quickly and delicately as a child testing an insect.
"You have great sadness over being expelled from the Academy Magus," she said, and I held back my contempt for such an obvious statement. "But you wouldn't go back now even if they asked."
"That's right," I said.
"You have a suitor at the magic school, but you shut him out because you're afraid." She flicked one of the stones and I nodded. "You made the right choice. He's not for you."
"Anything more specific?" I asked.
"Yes," she said with a cunning smile. "But you don't want to hear that part. Oh, but here's something interesting. Your nameday is in four days but you haven't told anyone."
"I don't know what day I was born," I said. "I'm sure you know that's not uncommon at the magic school."
"Well now you do know," she replied, walking her two fingers across the board.
"So far you haven't told me anything I couldn't learn from a palm-reader at a traveling carnival."
"People who are secure in their beliefs are never so touchy. Here." She tapped a stone that had fallen far outside of the others. "You will have an unexpected visitor soon. This person will deliver bad tidings."
"Is it you?" I asked, and this time she gave me a frown. "When will I meet this person?"
"Soon. Sometime within the next week?" She leaned back suddenly and brushed a couple stones aside, placing both fingers on the bone that was situated directly between the two pegs. She stared at it, turning paler by the second. Finally she picked it up from the board and turned it over in her hand, rubbing it with her thumb like a beachcomber who just discovered a smooth pebble on the shore.
She was far away, wandering through empty space searching for her beloved stars. I figured it was just stagecraft to build tension, but she never broke character. Instead, she tossed the stone among the others and slid them back into the holding pouch before yanking the pegs from their holes.
"Well?" I asked as she stowed the board in her satchel.
"You may not believe it, but I came to make sure you were all right after your episode." She stood up and gathered her satchel. "And you're not. There is some dark force working against you. Something evil. You must leave this place before the full moon—the sooner the better." She was already at the door before her words sank in.
"Wait," I said, knowing that Chalke would stop me from pursuing her. I must have been as pale as she was, because she wouldn't look me in the eye. "What do you mean leave? What happened to not cheating my own destiny?"
"That's just it, Isabel. You don't have one. Follow the king's command and return to the magic city. If you are still here in one week, you will be dead."
She didn't tarry, and I didn't chase her. I was too busy thinking about the close calls that had almost killed me already. Scribing scrolls and wand-making were too much for me. I couldn't even cast a spell without poisoning myself. I picked up the training wand and carried the charging stand back to the duffel.
I fell on the bed and passed in and out of slumber, each time returning to the same short dream where the duel had been called off and we had returned to the magic city to raise apricot trees. Suddenly I was back in the Tower of Seeing's main chamber, with its magnificent night sky ceiling. I inspected the constellations carefully, searching for the invisible witches that could never be found by mortal eyes.
I floated upward through the second-story library with its books lying unordered, scattered on tables and floors. Up I floated through the Archseer's chamber, where his body lay trapped forever because there was no one left to find it. Then I broke through the final ceiling into the wide world, falling into sky.
And then Gustobald was standing over me with his dead pigeon. Finally I descended into a deep dreamless sleep and couldn't be roused until the next morning. When I found the dead bird lying beside my pillow I shrieked and jerked back, falling off the bed completely. Once I hit the floor, I lay there for a short time. The hard stone slab was somehow more comfortable than the soft mattress.
"I trust you're rested," Gustobald said. "This won't be easy."
I sat up to peek over the bed. Gustobald's spell of slowing was enough to keep the bird from beginning the decomposition process. Thankfully, he had caught it within hours of the creature's death, so the pigeon looked more or less like a taxidermist's creation. Nevertheless, the sight made me squeamish, so I wrapped its little body in cloth so I wouldn't have to look at it. From then on, Airlea's predictions stayed at the forefront of my thoughts, and a mummified bird was the least of my worries.
Chapter 17
I unwound the pigeon from the bandages and placed it in the center of the table. Even in life it had been an ugly bird, mostly white with a shiny green head and speckled wings that detracted from the elegance of its otherwise plain body. The band which was used to attach its final message was still wound tightly around its left leg.
"There is nothing to worry about," Gustobald said. "I'm here with you." He took a small vial of cerebral fluid from his pocket and placed it on the table. "Okay, I will bring him back—"
"Is it a boy?" I asked.
"What? Who knows? It's a bird. Anyway, after that it's up to you to conduct the bonding ritual. Remember, if you don't bond within the first few minutes, his spirit will wander off and you'll lose him forever."
"Are you sure this is going to work?"
"It has worked every time I've attempted it."
"Do I need to ask?"
"I've only done it once." He picked up the vial and shook it, inspecting the liquid. "But what did we say about fear? Now, don't just stand there gongoozling the thing. Get the garnet from my satchel."
He began the incantation as soon as I handed him the materials. I focused intently on the necrospeech, and was surprised to make out a few syllables here and there. In contrast to my own clumsiness, the old wizard slurred the choppiness into something elegant, almost beautiful.
He dropped the gaudy bead into the vial and it dissolved instantly, but when he tipped the mixture to pour it over the small bird, a sudden pounding on the door stayed his hand. "Go away!" Gustobald shouted, stoppering the vial and pointing at the pigeon, which I quickly covered with a blanket from the bed.
"Open this door right now or I'll break it down and turn you into a cockaroach!" The woman's voice sounded familiar, but I couldn't place it. Gustobald rubbed his hand across his forehead as Sentinel Chalke opened the door to let Master Gretel in. "Thank you, sir. At least one person here was taught manners."
"It was locked from the outside," I said. I hadn't spoken to Gretel since our visit to the Tower of the Heart. She looked good in master's white. "Master Gretel." I bowed courteously, but she didn't even look at me. She was a woman on a mission.
"Hello, Gretel," Gustobald said warmly. "How have you been?"
"Well, if it isn't the famous Gustobald Pitch." Gretel waved her hands in front of her in mock admiration. "Wizard-detective of the Academy Magus." At hearing this title, the necromancer's somberness gave way to feign-reluctant pride, but Gretel didn't stop long enough for him to comment. "You'll never guess who paid me a visit yesterday," she said. "Adele Sinclair, the Archseer's apprentice."
"Congratulations!" Gustobald clapped his hands together once and smiled. "Your hard work is paying off, Gretel, as I knew it would. You've always been the brightest transmuter at the—"
"She wanted to know about Garrold Pent the Changer."
"I, uh—Say who?"
"I thought you might tell me," she said. "Apparently, he was here in the capital less than a week ago. An academy wizard."
"It's been a long time sin
ce I've been to the Tower of Heart. I'm afraid I've never heard of him."
"Don't play stupid with me!" Gretel pulled her wand and patted it on the palm of her hand, leading me to flex my own wrist before remembering Meridale had taken mine. "Someone was impersonating a high-ranking member of the transmutation school and acting in official capacity on behalf of the Academy Magus. Don't act like it wasn't you! Garrold Pent, indeed!"
"Gretel, come on. There are bigger problems to solve." Gustobald reached out to her, but she smacked his hand with her stick. He bit his lip and withdrew his arm, but maintained his gentleman's calm. "Listen. I shouldn't be telling you this as it's all rather hush-hush, but I'm a hair's breadth away from unraveling this foul mess and preventing all-out war. The royal family—nay, the entire kingdom is counting on my expertise, and I can't let them down. I won't!"
"Oh the drama!" She pointed her wand lazily in my direction, but didn't notice me flinch. "Is that true?"
"Which part?" I asked, but she gave up with a scoff.
"There, you see?" Gustobald continued. "It's a secret mission. I couldn't very well make an appearance in the king's court under my real name, could I?" He held open his palm to invite her to supply the answer, but she just slapped it with her wand again. Gustobald shook his fingers then kissed his fist. He turned to me for help but I took a step back. He raised his hat just high enough to scratch the top of his head, his nostrils flaring.
"So that's it then?" she asked. "You're admitting you impersonated an expert from my school?"
"Well, no. I wouldn't say that, no. But if I were to do so, technically, I am an expert of transmutation, and I am an official of the magic school."
"Not for long," she said.
"Gretel, why must we always argue?" Gustobald asked, stopping just short of reaching out to her again. "Put down the wand and let's just talk. How long has it been?"
"If you think I came all the way here just to chitchat with you—wait. Do you?" Gretel tilted her head and narrowed her beady eyes. "Did you do this on purpose?"
